New Metropolis

In 1927, Fritz Lang’s avante garde film Metropolis gave voice to the then popular fear of advanced technology gone mad – molding humans into automatons. It was a common fear of people growing up in an industrial age who did not yet know what was possible through automation, and what the limitations were.

People now generally have a much more comfortable relationship with advanced technology. We no longer worry that automated machines will force us to behave like automatons. We now realize that automated machines replace people who act like automatons. If you can’t provide that unique adaptive/creative spark that allows humans to rise above automatons, baby, you’re out of a job.